


breath of the wild and being alone

by lsularak



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: (psa in the very beginning i, Amnesia, Divine Beasts, Feelings, GOD why cant i tag, Gratuitous use of italics, Loneliness, Memory Loss, POV Second Person, Second Person, a lot of crying, ab the older games, all of the champions gifts, and stuff, bullshitted a little bit because i dont remember a ton, but i dont think its too horribly off??), hurt?, i hope u like it anyways though??, if you cant tell i have a lot of feelings about the ruins, it has been a While since i beat th game, link's 100 year nap, or at least the implications of it, probably?, so again i apologize for any inaccuracies, the whole thing is written in lowercase, theres a lot of "heroes do not cry" in this but thats bullshit just so u know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:01:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24414022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lsularak/pseuds/lsularak
Summary: you wake up, alone, and you listen to the voice of someone you don't remember to guide you.you wander the plateau, alone, and are given a mission by a man you don't know. you do this mission, alone, and receive a paraglider for your troubles.you leave the plateau,alone, and you make the trek across a land you don't know to meet a woman you don't remember.you wander the wilderness, alone, because the home you had one hundred years ago is buried beneath nature and the guardians that managed to kill you so long ago.you fight to free the lands of a Calamity that you do not remember, alone, and you have tolivewith that.you're soalone.breath of the wild can be a very lonely game.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 35





	breath of the wild and being alone

**Author's Note:**

> hello it is i a dumbass and i have forgotten everything ive ever known about legend of zelda because when i tried to write it all the information escaped. i am a stupid little fool but i can sometimes write words
> 
> that set aside though - hey hello how are you please enjoy my 3am Feelings Time writing that i had no intentions to allow to grow this much

you, link, are in possession of the triforce of courage. one of three. youre brave and unashamed of the lengths you go to to live up to this possession you never knew you had.  
your princess, your friend, your ally - your whatever, zelda, has the triforce of wisdom. shes beautiful and shes smart, but no amount of wisdom can stand up to raw power.  
your enemy, your nemesis, your blight, ganon, has the triforce of power. hes strong and always has the upper hand, theres always _something_ giving him another edge, another sword to cut you down with on your first attempt. he always wins the first time

and this is fine. youve kicked ganon's ass over and over despite the odds being stacked like a skyscraper against you, and you always _win_ , but with some heavy, lingering cost.

that's not really the _point_ , though. the point is, in almost every world, you have someone. you have _someone_ you will be returning to; be it the princess so that you can receive a blessing; to a village where the people have eagerly been awaiting your return, because _our own village raised a hero!_ , be it _any_ of these types of things, you _have_ something. something you can always come home to.

breath of the wild does not have these things.  
you wake up, alone, and you listen to the voice of someone you don't remember to guide you.

you wander the plateau, alone, and are given a mission by a man you don't know. you do this mission, alone, and receive a paraglider for your troubles.

you leave the plateau, _alone_ , and you make the trek across a land you don't know to meet a woman you don't remember.

you wander the wilderness, alone, because the home you had one hundred years ago is buried beneath nature and the guardians that managed to kill you so long ago.

you fight to free the lands of a Calamity that you do not remember, alone, and you have to _live_ with that.

you're so _alone_. 

sure, sometimes you take a horse with you, but there are mountains that you have to climb and the horse cannot follow you. and yes, sometimes, a wolf with kind eyes will follow you and fight alongside you, but he has to go home, sometime, and you are left with only the sounds of the wind where he once stood.

you’re just so alone; alone in a vast, vast world, with no one to go _back_ to, because so much of your mission is done alone. you travel for days, _a l o n e_ , just to get from point A to point B and to do it again. you go to the top of a mountain to meet someone who _might_ be able to help you, you get your upgrade, and you go. you go alone. 

you leave your horse at the stables as you leave those people, because your next mission requires so much climbing that there's no possible way the horse could come with you.

you climb the mountains and you get to the next village and you buy enough materials so that you can survive your next trip across the land because you are _never_ going to get a chance like this on the road.

you take your materials and you take your sword and you walk out of a village with comforting warmth and people and you go, because you're so incredibly alone, and you can't go off getting accustomed to having people when you're about to make a journey that would take months.

you don't sleep at that bed in the inn, and you don't look at the innkeeper as she watches you leave, because if you get used to these things disaster will strike again.

you take your things and you _go_ , because you're so used to being alone, now, that you have no reason not to be.

so you leave the village with the nice people and you make your journey to one of the larger villages, one of the villages housing the divine beasts that you are meant to save, to free. 

you decide to go to the zora’s domain first.

you take your horse from a nearby stable and you ride for days to a place infested with monsters and rain. you have to leave your horse before you really even get a line of sight on the domain, though, and you are alone again. 

you run through the winding and slippery paths the domain has laid out and you fight the monsters infesting it as you go. you go farther and farther and climb up to the top of some rock just to see if you're any closer to the domain. 

you see blue light and beautiful stonework and you know that you've almost made it, that you’re almost done with this trek, that you've nearly reached the quest that, when completed, will mark you as one fifth of the way done with your mission.

so you limp into the zora’s domain and you give a brief hello to the guards you pass, and you are well on your way to speak to the king but there is a statue that stands proud in the center of the domain, and it makes your mind ache with a memory you never knew you had. you don't linger, though, now is no time for memory, and the world depends on your haste.

you speak to the king and the prince and their advisor and they remember you, and you cannot tell them that you do not remember them, because your voice has stopped working due to the lump in your throat at all of the blame the advisor rests on your feet.

you help them, anyway.

the prince ( _sidon_ , mipha's little brother, the zora princess you should remember because she _loved_ you,) tells you what you need to collect in order to tame the beast and you go to shatterback point and you steal the shock arrows from beneath the lynel’s nose because no matter how much of a claim to the title of _hero_ you possess a lynel is simply too _much_.

you take your arrows and you speak to sidon and he tells you where you will find the beast and that he will meet you there, because a little hylian cannot swim around for as long as you will need to in order to subdue the beast.

so you put on the armor that mipha had made for you because she loved you and you ride on sidon’s back around the beast. you shoot the arrows that you stole and you force the beast to calm, and when all is said and done you climb your way into the deathtrap that is a divine beast tainted with malice. 

you solve the puzzles waiting inside the beast and you banish the malice that is in your way, and you find your way to the resting place of the blight of this beast. 

the waterblight, it is called, and it stares at you with ugly orange and yellow eyes as you draw your sword and prepare to free the beast.

it takes a long time, and the haunting feeling that you will fail and you will disappoint and that you already _have_ never leaves.

before you get the chance to leave the beast, to leave the tomb, you are stopped by the ghost of a girl you can scarcely place a name to, but you know she is mipha because she looks at you with such kindness and love that there is no mistaking her.

she tells you she watched your battle and watched you solve the puzzles laid before you and she thanks you. she gives you the gift the goddess had blessed her with since she is dead and not-quite-gone and will no longer have a use for it. _mipha’s grace_ , she calls it. 

she tells you it will save you if you ever come too close to death and you thank her in return, and you leave the tomb that is vah ruta, alone. you jump into the water below and swim to the dock made of the beautiful blue stones of the domain and you drag yourself to relatively dry land. 

you peel the dirty and torn zora armor off of your body and feel guilty for doing it. you promise yourself you will fix it, and you will wear it again.

you go visit sidon again and you tell him it is finished and his sister is at peace, and he tells you he believed in you all along because mipha had always believed in you, too. you do not cry because a hero does not cry, and you take your new armor and your new weapons and your new memories and your new grief and you leave the zora’s domain. you hope your horse is still alive and waiting where you had to leave it, but you hold no hope for it. you will end up alone again, anyway.

the next village you visit is the goron village. it is on death mountain and it is scalding to set foot on the mountain, so you leave your horse at the stable and you drink as many fireproof elixirs as you can stomach and you climb the mountain, alone. 

the ground still chars your shoes and sets fire to your wooden weapons but you simply swap the weapons for things that will not burn and you help a nice person out in exchange for their fireproof armor. it is still hot and you still sweat and the threat of burning remains, but it is tolerable and you climb higher and higher until you finally reach the village and the people you need to meet. 

you meet the chief and he tells a story about painkillers you don't really need to know. but then he explains that his back is not the best and he needs these painkillers and the boy he sent to get them has not yet returned. 

you go out looking and you find the path he was meant to take and you clear the way of all of the enemies that line it. you search for the goron and are ready to quit when you hear someone crying out. it's who you're looking for, so you find a cannon and blast him free.

you save and meet yunobo and discover he’s a descendant of daruk, who is someone you should know. you don't, though.

so you bring yunobo back and the chief gets his painkillers, and he tells you more about daruk. you remember something and you think that it might be enough for you to pretend you never forgot in the first place.

you promise you will take care of the thing corrupting this beast. you don't need to tell him that you know exactly what awaits you, and that you have done it before. 

so you go to the bridge where yunobo is waiting and you make the journey to the beast that killed a friend you may never truly remember.

you climb around to the cannons you have to launch yunobo out of, and you don't really hesitate to press the buttons needed to fire him at the beast. 

so you launch yunobo a few times and maybe you have a little fun doing it, but the gravity of the situation sits heavy on your heart as your entry point is made.

you take the paraglider the old man gave you so long ago and you glide down to the beast and you start the puzzles all over again. you banish the malice you can and avoid what you can not, and you finish the puzzles and find the blight of this beast.

the fireblight, this one is called, and it stares at you with the same ugly colors as the waterblight did. you employ different methods to kill this beast and the fight is tiring, but at the end of it all the beast screams and writhes and dies out just as the last did, and you get to see the ghost of another companion you do not remember.

daruk knows you do not know him, but his sadness is still there; the mourning of a person he had once known, when really, it should be you that is mourning. but you have no memories and you have no time for mourning as daruk offers you his goddess given gift as well. 

it is much different than mipha’s grace, and he calls it _daruk’s protection_. it is a very on the nose name, and you think that maybe, once, you had liked that he was so straightforward.

so you leave the ghost of a brother you have forgotten and you take your new ability and you leave this beast, vah rudania, alone, too.

you visit the chief and you tell him it is done and you thank yunobo for his help, and you are grateful that they do not really remember daruk well enough to tell you anything like sidon had. 

you do not cry when you descend the mountain, alone.

you go next to the rito village, because the heat of death mountain has made you long for the snow of the hebra region. 

you long for the snow, but it is still too cold for you. so you go to the armor shop and you buy the pretty snowquill armor and you put it on and the cold becomes bearable. 

after you get your armor you leave the shop and find the chief, again. it could be a game, at this point. 

but it isn't, and you do not have time to waste. so you find the chief and you speak to him and he tells you of the scourge on their land that is the infected beast perched above their village.

you prepare to leave and fight the beast alone because no one has come forth to help, but another rito tells you that you should speak to teba. 

you aren't very sure, but you think he’s a descendant, too. if he is anything like the small piece of revali that you remember, you do not know that you really want his help. but there is a beast and there is a blight and you have little choice in the matter.

so you find teba at the flight range and tell him you can help and he tells you to you prove yourself, first. so you take a bow and you take some arrows and you leap into the wind blowing up from the ground of the range and catch it with your paraglider.

you shoot some targets and you nearly fall to the bottom of the range a few times but you survive and teba is impressed. he tells you he will fly you to the beast and you will only have to do the archery.

so you get comfortable flying with teba and he takes you higher into the air than you have ever been and may ever go again, and you leap off his back and shoot arrows at the shield generators around the beast until they break and you are free to enter. 

teba is hurt and you feel guilty, but there is no time for guilt and it can eat away at you later.

so you once again do the puzzles and clear the malice and find a blight.

this one, the windblight. it is still the same colors and the same hatred and you see the blight for what it is; a murderer. all of them have been and the next surely will be, too. it is a murderer because it is ganon, and he knows what he is doing. it is a murderer, and it needs to be taken down.

you do not feel guilt for cutting down something sentient enough to be called a murderer rather than just a monster. this was always what you were meant to do.

so you kill the blight and it wails and dissipates and you see the ghost of another friend who died because you could not stop ganon when he first appeared.

revali is arrogant and you aren't sure what he says to you can truly count as thanks, but he offers you a skill he took great pride in perfecting. it is no goddess given gift, and he seems proud of the fact that he managed it even in death. 

_revali’s gale_ , he calls it. all you have to do is crouch and he will summon the wind for you to glide on, now that he cannot use it for himself anymore. 

you doubt you would have ever been privy to the mechanics of the gale if the calamity had never happened, but you would rather live with the mystery one hundred years ago than survive with the truth now.

but there is, as always, no time to think on these things as you leave vah medoh and make your way to the chief again.

he thanks you and you do not stick around long enough to discover if anyone remembered revali well enough to offer you more words. you doubt they would be kind, anyway.

so you prepare to go to the last beast, the last village. but you do not make it that far, because you stop in kakariko before you go. you stop to talk to impa and she reminds you that the master sword is waiting for you, deep in the heart of the lost woods.

you think it will make your battle easier, so you go to find it.

it takes you days of riding and searching and when you do manage to find the forest it takes you even longer to navigate to the heart of it. but you make it and you see a tree that reminds you of someone you may have met, once, but you dismiss it and look at your sword which has been waiting for you in its pedestal for one hundred years, taking its own time to heal. 

the great deku tree warns you that you may be strong, you may be a hero, but the sword may still reject you, you may not be strong enough yet. you listen to his warning and decide to try, at least, because you need this sword to continue your fight. you are already three fifths of the way done, and it is urgent that you finish your mission.

so you try to pull the sword from its pedestal and you do not succeed, the deku tree stops you just before your ability to stay conscious gives out on you. he tells you with something like pity that you're simply not strong enough, yet, and you need to finish the shrines scattered about the land. these shrines were made for you, to strengthen you, and you alone.

you thank the deku tree and take your leave, swearing you will be strong enough to pull the sword the next time you visit.

you start searching for the shrines more, now, as you travel. they are everywhere and they are challenges, and you are determined to solve what lies within them.

so you find the shrines and you go into the shrines, alone. those things you find on your travels in the strangest of places, with the strangest of puzzles inside and out of them. 

you go into the shrines and you face whatever trial awaits you, and then you speak to the monk who has been waiting for one hundred years (for _you_ , just you, no one else is allowed inside, only the hero needs the strength a shrine will provide). the monk will give you a spirit orb, and you will hold it in your heart so you may offer it to the goddess the next time you pray.

you are, briefly, not alone.

but then the monk will disintegrate because no body so frail and starved should still be on the earth, and then you will be alone again.

you will stare at the place the monk once sat and you will wonder who put them here, and you will mourn the loss of a life no one knew still existed.

you leave the shrine, and you find the next one.

alone.

but once you have found all the shrines you're able to and you have prayed to the goddess for so long that your knees have bruised, you turn your sights to the ruins of a land you had - apparently - once loved.

you know you need to free the final beast to save this land you do not know and you think that doing so may help you remember why you loved it so much.

so you stand on sore feet and push aching limbs and a bruised little body to travel farther and farther. 

you make it back to the deku tree and he seems pleased to see you, and he tells you that you look stronger. you give him a small smile that is more of a grimace from how rare it is that you do smile, and you grab the hilt of a sword that once was yours and you _pull_. you pull and you pull and goddesses above the sword comes _free_.

held between your hands is a sword that had called out to you since you set eyes on it, and she is happy to be back with her wielder. 

you test your sword with a few quick swings and find that the weight in your hands is more familiar than any up until this point.

you thank the deku tree and you take your sword and leave the forest, and you prepare to journey to the desert.

you are not allowed in gerudo town.

it is not because they do not have a problem, and it is not because they do not want your help; it is because you are a boy. a voe, they call you. 

the guards outside of gerudo town look at you like you are a fool when you ask what a voe is, what a vai is, but they tell you and explain that only women are allowed in gerudo town. you aren't very sure about why that is.

a man outside of gerudo town heard of a man who managed to sneak in, though, and you need to go in the village to learn of the beast and its weaknesses, if it has any.

so you begin a search for a man who is clearly adept at blending in. you search and you search and you choke down cooling elixirs so that the desert heat does not cripple you as you do so.

you do manage to find the man.

he is at the kara kara bazaar you passed through to get to the gates of gerudo town. he is resting on the roof of the only real building there, and when you find him you don't notice that you have until he tells you.

he is dressed in the clothes of gerudo vai, and he makes you a wonderful deal to obtain a set of your own. so you pay the man a modest sum of rupees for a less modest set of clothing. you can get into gerudo town, now, and your clothes have a heat resistant effect that allows you to cross the desert again in comfort.

so you wear your new clothes and you make the trip back to gerudo town, where all of the women there address you as the _little hylian vai_. you don't really mind. 

you go through the center of town and climb the stairs in front of you and you come to a stop before the chief who looks suspiciously like a child. you tell her you can help with the beast causing such catastrophic sandstorms, and she would gladly take your help, even though she knows you are not a vai, but the thunder helm has gone missing. an heirloom, of sorts. a relic. so you say you will retrieve this relic and you will.

you leave the town and you climb up, up, and you put on the warm snowquill armor because somehow a desert has such cold weather so close to it. you keep climbing and you search around until you find the hideout of those who stole the helm.

the yiga clan, they call themselves. a bastardized version of the sheikah who welcomed you in kakariko. 

completely unlike the sheikah, the yiga clan wishes to kill the hero. to kill the princess. to serve ganon. they want you dead and gone and you don't feel bad when you knock them down with ease simply to get to their base.

the base, however, requires some degree of stealth. so you take the armor you bought in kakariko and you drink a sneaky elixir and you go in, and you are not caught. you release a gerudo prisoner that had tried to retrieve the thunder helm herself and you keep going. 

you have to fight the leader of the clan, but he is no real danger and he is dropped into a pit with no apparent bottom. 

you take the thunder helm and you leave.

you go back to gerudo town and you dress like a vai and you see the chief, the child, riju. she laughs with joy and thanks you and puts the helm on, and a memory strikes you from somewhere you did not know you had hidden the memory away.

you know a little more about urbosa, now, and she seemed like a wonderful woman, and riju certainly reminds you of her.

so riju takes her sand seal and you rent one and you ride out to the beast and you rely on riju to keep you safe with the thunder helm as you shoot at the feet of the beast.

all of your firing works and no one is hurt, and you find your way into the beast and try to prepare yourself for another trial of mind and body.

you do the puzzles and destroy the malice and you wake the beast that killed urbosa.

the thunderblight. it is fast and it is merciless and mipha has saved you more than once and daruk struggles beneath the force of its blows and even revali cannot get you out of its path quickly enough to avoid damage. but you win, anyway. you kill the beast and as it wails and screams you feel a sick thrill of satisfaction run through you, and it has nothing to do with the lightning that struck and shot through your veins.

urbosa thanks you and tells you that you fought fiercely, and she gives you her goddess given gift, too. _urbosa’s fury_ , she calls it, and what a fitting name it is for a woman as furious and fierce as she.

you take her gift and you test it once with a snap that sends lightning flying all around you. it is satisfying and you take this gift with full intentions to use it against the calamity.

so you leave vah naboris and you tell riju it is done and she thanks you, and you are gone before the guards have time to realize that you are not a vai.

you leave the desert and you go back to impa and she tells you that you have done well, but you still need to _remember_ , first, and you avoided this very thing for so long, you are dismayed to find that you must do it before you can save hyrule.

but you pick yourself up and you open the sheikah slate and you look at the pictures given to you and you start a journey that easily lasts months.

at the end of it all, though, you have a head with seventeen complete memories rolling around in it, and when you visit her again she tells you where you may find the last one. 

there is a painting on her wall, and she tells you to find the location in it.

this is an easy task, because you have seen that field of rusted guardian corpses too many times to count.

so you go and you find it and you relive an agonizing fall you would rather have left to the imagination, and you now have eighteen memories to your name.

now armed with mind and body and tools of your trade you turn your sights to the ruins of hyrule castle and you climb down from the peak you had scaled just to see what rested at the top. you hit the ground and you climb on the back of a horse you know you may not have for much longer, and you set a course for the ruins of what was once a home.

so you put on your best armor and you take out your best sword and shield, and you spur your horse onwards to the area you have avoided for so long, because being alone in those lands feels much like an omen. 

you can never make it very far, in the fields around the castle.

you follow a beaten path that is scarcely there for the lack of travel it has received in the last one hundred years, pulling off to the side to investigate the strange little statues you found with offerings in the plates of them, and digging through ruins of what was most likely a home, once.

you find some old weapons that have long since rusted and split, and you take them; but there is one home you simply do not have the heart to take from.

you find an old ranch, and a treacherously hanging sign declares it to be _'lon lon ranch'_. it feels like the kind of place that was always full of activity. if you squint hard enough, youre almost sure you can see the silhouettes of horses and cuccos and the structures that once stood around in all their glory; but when you blink it turns out that it was just the rain in your eyes.

you dont take a thing from the ranch, but you get rid of the guardian and the bokoblins that were tainting the ground.

you build a campfire for the night. it's awfully dangerous to travel the fields in the day, and when stal-monsters can appear, the danger increases tenfold.

but building this little campfire, resting by it, it makes the feeling of being so utterly _alone_ hit even harder.

being alone in untamed lands is normal, it's expected, and when you see another out there with you it seems wrong

being alone in the ruins of a home, of a city, of any land that was meant for more than one; it is wrong, and it is lonely. sure, you may have been alone for so much of your journey, but you were never really _lonely_. 

you decide that you do not like the feeling.

so the next morning you wake up and you shake the stiffness from your joints and you leave the ruins of a home that feels upsettingly familiar. you go on foot, because your horse was injured in your fight against the guardian and can no longer run, and where you are going, you will run or you will not make it much farther.

you take your aching body and drag it through the fields and you feel a nagging sense of familiarity with every step you take, but you remember nothing as you continue walking.

maybe you simply can't remember. maybe the land has changed far too much for anything to really strike you with a memory, now, or maybe that part of your mind was wiped too clean by the shrine of resurrection. you do not know which it is, and you doubt you ever really will; and it does not matter.

you are the hero, and you have a duty to fulfill, and you _will_ fulfill it.

so you run and tear your way to the castle and you hide when too many guardians spot you and the beeping and the red of their targeting lasers becomes too much and grates against your ears. you emerge when they pass and you keep going to the castle - to the place the princess has been waiting for one hundred years and where so much of your life had been, once.

you sneak into the castle via the docks and you carve your way through every moblin and bokoblin that dares to stand in your way. you leave them in pieces before the world reclaims them and turns them to black and purple ash, nothing but a smear of rapidly drying blood marking the places where they fell.

you tear them down and you fight and you make it to the top of the castle, and you take a deep breath and steady yourself and remind yourself that this was your goal all along; this is why you still live and why the guardian that tried to kill you was not successful those hundred years ago. you are only alive because the world still needs you and you cannot let them down.

so you make sure your armor is sitting properly on your body and you strap your best shield to your arm and pull the master sword from its sheath and you enter, and you are not surprised that your presence makes ganon surge with power and rage enough to overpower the princess.

he breaks free and he collapses in a vile red and black and orange and yellow heap on the floor which cracks under his sudden and massive weight. it cracks and keeps cracking until there is no way it can possibly hold his weight, and as a consequence, yours.

you both fall. to where, it is uncertain, but it is a large, large room that fits you and the calamity with ease and as he growls at you all you can think to do is raise your sword in a threat. he screeches at the sword that seals the darkness and he prepares to crush you beneath his malice body and his murderous intent.

so you prepare to fight but before either of you can land a blow the beasts you worked so hard to free have powered up and the ghosts of their pilots shout with glee as all four of their heavy blasts find their mark on the calamity. he screeches with fear and pain at the idea that maybe, just maybe, you were not as weak as he remembered, and the both of you understand this will be a fight for your lives. there will be no escaping your fate if a killing blow lands, and one of you will rot in the confines of this recess beneath the castle.

so you fight. you fight and it is a tiring and bloody and merciless fight and you are _exhausted_ , you ache down to your bones and your lungs are heaving for breath that simply does not have time to come; and you are _winning_.

you have given so many hits and you know you have received several of your own but the beast is heaving even harder than you are and it is growing desperate, attacking with more ferocity but less coordination and then you run to it because surely only a few more hits will take the beast down and you run and push your bruising legs harder and harder and you reach the beast-

and everything stops. for a moment, at least.

calamity ganon wails and writhes just as all of his blights did as they died, and that sick thrill of satisfaction pumps through your veins with as much ferocity as your beating heart can allow. 

but you are not done.

the beast begins to turn into some kind of fog and he escapes through the same place the pair of you fell in and you will not let him _escape_ but you cannot get out on your own. the goddess, or maybe the princess, you are not sure, hears your rage and desperation and she helps you; she frees you, taking you directly to the place that ganon has fled to.

it is not a good place.

you are back in hyrule field and it is mercifully free of guardians, but the threat is even greater than that of a guardian.

ganon has formed into something even larger, something that the little recess of the castle you had been in could never hope to hold. he has formed into some kind of large boar, and he is pure malice and vitriol and you know that you can not lose this fight, or there will be no world to save.

so you prepare to take a bow but you need not have worried because the princess gives you the bow of light. it is as much a goddess given gift as mipha’s grace or daruk’s protection or urbosa’s fury and you wield the bow with the same determination and strength as all the others.

you pull back the bowstring and you need no arrows because the light that forms is stronger than any arrow you could ever hope to hold. so you fire and fire and fire at every spot the princess lights up for you, highlighting the dark beast’s weaknesses, and you do not stop firing until the ugly, ugly malice parts on the beast’s forehead to reveal the same ugly orange and yellow eyes that all of the blights stared at you with, and you know that with one more arrow you will win the fight.

so you use revali’s gale and you launch yourself high enough in the air to look into the eye with your own and you pull back the bowstring again and you _fire_ , and the beast screams.

it wails and cries and your duty is finished, because the princess you went through all of this to free is there and she looks on the beast with thinly concealed hatred. 

she looks exactly as she did one hundred years ago when you failed.

so the princess uses her powers and chases the beast away with her light and forces him to go to a dark place you do not wish to think about.

the calamity is defeated, and it is only the two of you in hyrule field.

you walk to her and shes speaking before you are there, and she tells you that she watched over you all this time. she saw all of your struggles and trials and every victory and loss you had, and she tells you she always believed in you and she could never lose faith in you and it does not make you cry. 

she thanks you, link, the hero of hyrule, and when she looks up at you she asks if you truly remember her, and you do not cry when all you can do is stare at her with eyes devoid of the light of recognition.

she does not hold your lack of memory against you, but you catch her watching you from the corner of your eyes and you can tell she is searching for the ghost of the stranger you once were. you still travel with the princess and offer aid for her efforts to rebuild hyrule, but you are still, somehow, horribly alone.


End file.
